Not Burning Up
by Taliatoennien
Summary: What might have happened the day after “Amends.”


Summary: What might have happened the day after "Amends."

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the setting, and the episode isn't mine. I'm not making any money on this story.

Angel: It never snows in southern California.

Cordelia: It did that one time.

--_Angel_, "The Price"

Not Burning Up

by Alicia

_Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!' Luke 2:13-14, NRSV_

_Angel, please, the sun is coming up! _

His hand was cold--not just skin-cold; ice-cold. There was a place in the middle of his hand where her hand had warmed it, but even that had little speckles of cold where the snow had driven its way between their joined hands. She clutched his hand more tightly. She wanted to warm all of it--

But Angel probably didn't feel any of it; not the heat, not the cold, not the snow.

Could he tell the difference?

She couldn't ask him. She couldn't speak.

_"If I can't convince you that you belong in this world, then I don't know what can."_

It hadn't been Buffy who had given life--okay, unlife, but who cared, here in the snow next to an expressive, handsome face--back to Angel. She hadn't been able to keep him with her. That frightened her still. She had been angry at Angel--who wouldn't have been--but it had been his logic more than his choice that had angered her. It had looked exactly like the world didn't want him. He'd told her a little, and she could guess the rest, how he'd been told that the only way to end the unendurable guilt was to give in, to be evil. One young lady, even a special young lady, even the Slayer, couldn't stand against the moral weight of the world.

Whatever had sent the snowfall could, and had.

If only it would show itself. If only it would proclaim to Buffy and Angel both that from that point forward, Angel's life was going to be possible and useful and always fought for the right side.

_"Maybe this evil did bring you back, but if it did, it's because it needs you. And that means that you can hurt it." _

Those were just words. Fighting words, from a Slayer who could lose everything but her fighting spirit--as she'd proven, fighting Angel himself, once upon a time--but still just words. Angel could slip that far again.

_"If you're too much of a coward...then burn."_

He didn't even smell of smoke. The cloud cover that day was _that_ complete.

There was such wonder in Angel's eyes.

It was transient and terrifying, but they _had_ been given a gift. Angel, the knowledge that he didn't have to fight the forces inside of him all by himself. Buffy had been given Angel. She'd been trying to stay away from him before, but it seemed that all her resolution, all her reasons for forming that resolution, had been burned away that evening.

She loved him.

"You should go in," Angel said softly. "Tell your mom you're okay."

They were standing on Buffy's doorstep. She hadn't noticed. It was as if everything had been transformed by the snow.

Angel let go of Buffy's hand and gave her a little push toward the house. "Go in. It's Christmas." He turned back toward the street.

Buffy reclaimed his hand. After all those months, the thought now of letting Angel go, even for a second, was more than she could bear.

_"If you die now, then all that you ever were was a monster."_

Uh-huh. A monster. With dark, gorgeous good looks and tears frozen in his eyes.

"Buffy, I'll be okay."

Like she believed that for a second, although worry wasn't her reason for holding Angel's hand into her chest like it kept her heart beating. "I'll come over and see you just as soon as I can get away."

Maybe he thought it was just worry, because he said, "Something gave me my life back. I'm not gonna throw that away. I came too close to hurting you, one way or the other, and that's more than I can bear."

"I'm still coming over later."

"Then I'll have a Christmas present for you."

Then Angel was gone into the dark...into the day-that-was-still-night. He was only gone for a little while. Snow fell harder, and nothing burned. Nothing would burn. Buffy tried to make herself believe.

_"Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together." _

It wasn't yet seven o'clock in the morning, and there, standing on her snow-encrusted doorstep, Buffy found that she didn't want to face her mother yet, or field any questions from Faith. She hoped that they'd gone on to celebrate Christmas eve without her. Leaving them the previous night blurred in her mind. Buffy was a warrior, and when she had a crisis to solve, she tended not to even remember the surrounding details. Her mother wasn't yet used to it.

Angel would understand, though.

Unbidden, Buffy's feet took her away from her house and toward Xander's neighborhood. Xander had done his best to solve the puzzle of Angel's return; he deserved to know that everyone was okay. That Angel was alive. Undead. Whatever.

She turned a corner, and even if she hadn't known the way by heart, Buffy would have been able to find Xander's yard just by the trail of curse words echoing all the way down the street. She poked her head through a gap in the Harris fence. Besides swearing, Xander was trying to stuff a comic book into its plastic sleeve, as snowflakes etched new patterns on its pages. Buffy let a snicker slip out. Xander's head jerked up. Buffy vaulted the fence in one smooth motion, and landed, catlike, on Xander's sleeping bag.

"I never figured you were a comic book geek," Buffy said.

"This was an original Ultimate X-Men and I'm not--all guys are--there are different types of geeks? Are there different types of nerds too?" He sealed the plastic and shoved the comic behind a bunch of others in his pillowcase. It probably wouldn't be much protection; like the sleeping bag, the pillowcase was spotted with show that would be water just as soon as Xander brought them inside.

His eyes showed that he knew that all too well—Xander saw things. That was one of the things Xander did. "Merry Christmas, Buffy."

"Merry Christmas, Xander. Don't swear at the snow. It saved Angel's life."

That was another thing about Xander—everything he felt showed in his face. At this point, it ran from relief to fear to jealousy and back to fear, and his eyes went along for the ride, even more expressively. "You know...why he's back?"

"We know."

"And?"

Buffy didn't want to talk about it. It wasn't quite like earlier that morning with Angel, but she'd lost the power of speech again. Maybe she should just ask him what "khest" meant or something inane like that.

Xander looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time that morning.

Buffy realized she'd carried the tears frozen on her cheeks all this way. She must be a sight.

"You kinda look like you need a hug," Xander said, holding out his arms.

"I kinda say thank you," said Buffy.

Xander brushed away the lame attempt at joking and held her for several long moments. His jacket absorbed the tears so that Buffy's face was dry when they finally pulled away.

"I...should get back to Mom," Buffy said. "I just wanted to say crisis over. And thank you."

"Well, nothin' says thank you like a new comic book subscription..."

_You're weak. Everybody is. Everybody fails. _

The Christmas tree was exactly where Buffy had left it, a bedraggled star clinging to the top. Her mother was sprawled in an armchair between it and the fireplace, and Faith was asleep curled at her mother's feet.

Buffy slipped across the room to the box of unused Christmas decorations and found the treetop angel. It was as tall as a candle, with a miniature candle held in its hands that would connect to the tree lights. Buffy eased the star off of the tree and put the angel in its place. Its robes lit, making a circle of white light--the only light, without the sun and with the fire burned to embers.

Faith uncurled. Her movements looked lazy, but Buffy was enough of a fighter to recognize their supple grace. Whoever said that Faith had passion but no skill hadn't seen her in that moment.

Buffy opened her mouth to apologize.

Faith shoved a long, narrow package into Buffy's hands. "We didn't wait," Faith said--neither awkwardly nor accusingly, just as a statement of fact. "Open it."

Without the energy to tear or fling the paper, Buffy slowly took it off. It was a stake. Whittled smooth and fairly even, with the word "Slayer" carved in shaky letters down one side. Not "Buffy" but "Slayer." Buffy took a few slow swings. Stakes didn't physically balance the way knives did, but one could tell by the feel whether they would be functional, and this one was.

"Should be a vamp fest out there," Faith said, gesturing to the still-black sky.

She and Angel hadn't seen a single vampire all the way through Sunnydale. Another gift.

Faith backed away silently from the sleeping Joyce, then made a beeline for the kitchen. "Let's make waffles. Now. I'm starving."

Buffy laughed. "Do you ever _not_ think about food?"

"Guard duty makes me hungry."

"Hold on a sec," Buffy said to Faith's back. "Or you start. I just need to call Willow, and then I'll come down and help."

"Okay, I'll keep on with my tremendously difficult guard job. I'll guard the sticky buns the UPS guy dropped off from your grandma last night after you split."

UPS on Christmas Eve? Buffy vaguely hoped he'd gotten holiday pay, but all she said was, "Deal."

_"And I hate it! I hate that it's so hard... and that you can hurt me so much."_

Talking to Willow...to Buffy, it meant a much safer love. And yet she hoped that Willow wouldn't ask too many questions, wouldn't release the dam behind which the events of the evening were hidden. Suicide wasn't a safe subject at the best of times, and when it was combined with almost losing the fiercer, more passionate love to the enemy...no, Buffy definitely wasn't ready to talk about it yet.

No one picked up on the other end until the sixth ring, and then a sleepy voice said, "Hello?"

"Merry Christmas, Will. Or Happy Chanukah...wait, wasn't that over two days ago?"

Willow's signature laugh. "Three, but thanks for the thought. Oz and I were just watching the snow."

Buffy vaguely remembered telling Willow that she just had to let Oz know that he came first. "So you two are back."

"More than back." So much joy...

Love could be joy, too. Going beyond love could-- "So did you--I mean--"

Another rich laugh. "None of your business, Miss Seize-the-Day, but no, at least not yet. We're just close, again. That feels—"

Buffy waited. "Like a gift?" she finally said.

"Like an everything gift. Oz is _here_."

"I'm glad, Will." As she said those last words, Buffy cast for another safe subject. "Listen, Will, everything turned out okay...with Angel...but now I want to do something nice for Giles. What do you get the Watcher who has every ancient book ever written?"

"Angel--" Willow broke off. "Scones! You could make scones. I doubt Giles has had a real English breakfast since he came to America."

"Uh, scones. Okay. Faith has all the baking stuff out, so I guess that's do-able...do you know how to make scones?"

"Hang on." There was the familiar sound of Willow's laptop starting up and her Internet connection going through. "Okay, scone recipe. Apple or blueberry?"

Buffy visualized her kitchen. "Plain? We don't have a lot of berries right now."

Willow rattled off a recipe as Buffy scribbled on the back of an old Chemistry paper. "Just make sure you bring strawberry curd to put on the scones. It's like a rule in England."

"Uh, okay."

"Look in those little baskets of jellies that everyone gives everyone else at holiday time and no one ever uses. You do have some sitting around, right?"

"Okay."

"Buffy? You all right?"

"Sure, Will. I have to go find that curd. Thanks, and tell Oz Merry Christmas...or is he Jewish too?"

"I have to go ask!"

Buffy laughed again as she put the phone back in its cradle. "Happy Chanukah, Willow," she whispered.

It didn't take long to find the curd, in the second basket of unused jellies behind a little jar of orange marmalade.

Buffy did a little more searching before heading downstairs, because she hadn't bought a present for Faith. She honestly hadn't thought the other Slayer would come over. There was a brand-new slinky black top, in the pile of things from that summer with her dad that she was hoping to wear while leaving through her bedroom window--she hadn't found a way to wear this one out without ripping it yet. She put it over her shoulder and started downstairs. On her way she deposited her mother's present, a wrapped, oddly-shaped antique for the gallery, under the Christmas tree. Her mother still slept soundly in that chair.

_"I know everything that you did, because you did it to me." _

Buffy held out the shirt to Faith. Faith draped it over her hands. "It's beautiful," Faith said slowly.

Okay, _Faith_ wasn't going to get the "Christmas spirit," 'cause with the unexpected snow and the day of darkness and the fact that they needed the fire that was blazing again--the world would seriously be upside down. "Waffles," Buffy said.

"I--uh--"

Faith probably didn't know how to make the batter. "Thanks for not starting without me," said Buffy. She efficiently put the rest of the ingredients on the counter. "One part sugar to three parts flour, measuring cups here, then we add the eggs..."

The sun would have been high in the sky--as it is, it was twilight outside rather than dark--as Buffy left Faith in charge of the waffle iron and bent over the oven to put in a tray of scones. She felt something funny on her neck, but thought it must be an overactive imagination. She must still be thinking of Angel. She'd just have to see Giles, and then she could spend the rest of the day at Angel's mansion.

Joyce stumbled into the kitchen. Faith took the first golden-brown waffle off the iron and poured a second. "Merry Christmas, girls," she said, hugging Buffy with her arms and Faith with her eyes. She pulled back. "Buffy? Honey? What's that on your neck?"

Faith handed Buffy a mirror. Drawn on her back in flour was a credible imitation of Angel's most prominent tattoo.

"FAITH!"

"Careful, B," Faith said, evading Buffy--although that wouldn't last for long; Buffy was still faster--"You don't want your scones to burn."

Buffy withdrew the tray. They should have been in the oven long enough to burn, but they looked, smelled, and tasted perfect. Buffy turned a scone over, tasted its corner, and carefully put the rest on paper towels to cool.

Her back itched, and she rubbed it. Her hand came away full of flour. "Faith, you jerk, now I'll have to shower before I go to Angel's."

"Sure you don't want to wait until you get there?"

"FAITH!"

"Do I have to separate you two?" said Buffy's mother, stepping between the two Slayers. Her arms were loaded with food to put on the table. Both Buffy and Faith moved to help her, one on either side, their movements almost identical.

Buffy still seriously thought about punching Faith's lights out! But there, at the dining room table, with warm maple syrup in her mouth and the fire crackling, she gave it up for the moment. She just sat in the remaining poignant joy of just being alive.

_"You don't know. Some great evil takes credit for bringing you back and you buy it? You just give up?...I know what it told you. What does it matter?"_

Giles looked _exactly_ as he had the night before, when Buffy had realized where Angel was and left him in the library. Neither betrayed nor disappointed, just tired. His face tensed when he saw Buffy, then relaxed as his eyes fixed on her smile and the plate of scones. He opened the door and ushered her inside. He had moved his "Mr. Giles" stocking from the library to his mantleplace, and he didn't have a Christmas tree, but he did have a roaring fire.

"Disaster averted," said Buffy. "You really came through, Giles, and I wanted to thank you."

He took the plate of scones and put it on the coffee table, then started a kettle of tea. He didn't say that she didn't need to thank him, that he hadn't done anything--Angelus' torture and Buffy's betrayal still hung thick in the air--and Buffy was grateful that he didn't pretend that they weren't both thinking of it. He turned back to her and said, "Thank you," and then spread curd on a scone and smiled.

"Willow told me," Buffy said.

"Willow is resourceful. Would you like one, and a cup of tea?"

Buffy shifted from foot to foot. "I'm full of waffles, and I can't stay."

"You're going to see Angel."

It wasn't a question, but Buffy couldn't read Giles as he said it. It could have been an accusation, or a warning...the tears she'd almost forgotten about in the chaos of the morning sprang back into her eyes. She flopped into one of his comfortable armchairs, trying to hold them back. "I shouldn't, but I—"

"Buffy—"

"He tried to kill himself, Giles! If the sun it had actually come up, if the snow hadn't come...I couldn't get him inside…" she couldn't finish, but her imagination painted the picture all too vividly for her. Buffy looked away from Giles' fireplace, staring resolutely out the window. Snowflakes came almost as thickly as sheets of rain, and the effect was hypnotic.

Giles finished an entire cup of tea before he spoke. "I'm not entirely certain what you should do, Buffy. You've had enough practice making the hard choices."

"I know--"

He held up a hand, and Buffy fell silent. "There comes a time when you must follow your heart instead. There is a point when you have to refuse to compromise--to say that there is only one choice, not a realm of gray."

"Is this your point? Is sacrificing Angel again too much? You told me yesterday that I might have to kill him again."

"I did."

"I almost let him kill himself."

"Could you have forced him to come inside?"

She was physically stronger than Angel, but the bluff was so far away from shelter, and bringing him unwilling, when he had shown he was willing to hit her, even if she had hit him first...no, it wouldn't have been possible. She shook her head.

"Will he try it again?"

"I don't think so." Buffy gestured outside. "The snow, Angel's gift from whatever powers want him in this world. He's back at his home. He tried to make me spend the day with my mom, but I insisted I was going to see him, and he said he was going to get a Christmas present." Once the words had been started, they came more easily. It was also easier to stay in the immediate present rather than the possible past or the not too distant future. In the immediate present, Angel was safe and waiting for her.

"So he has his answer."

"Yes. And I--being so long away--I have to go, Giles," Buffy said. She stood up.

"With my blessing," Giles said. He wrapped Buffy's coat more snugly around her, then opened the door.

"I came to give you a gift," said Buffy without meeting his eyes. "You just gave me a better one."

Giles' face was indecipherable. He understood; that much was plain. "Thank you," was all he said as for the third time that day, Buffy turned away from light and heat into a vague promise of something that went deeper than warmth.

_"What about me? I love you so much... And I tried to make you go away... I killed you and it didn't help...I wish that I wished you dead. I don't. I can't." _

He was waiting for her when she walked through the mansion door. It had been wide open, snow blowing freely through the floors and out the open windows. Angel was just out of sight, in the kitchen next to the coffeepot.

Buffy took a few steps in. Angel smiled when he saw her, and--with superhuman speed--closed every window in the mansion and shut the great doors. He returned to the coffeepot. Even through the speed, he looked so...tired. There was a sense of eternal weariness about him that swept over Buffy for a moment. The long struggle that was life had been over, and was beginning again, and life would never be the same. Except in the sense that it would forever be the same.

"_Then fight it..."_

Angel held out a steaming cup, and Buffy took it. "Merry Christmas," Angel said--more awkwardly, almost, than Buffy had ever seen him. An adolescent kid at the Bronze, working up the courage to approach a girl--except that it was him, and it was her, and that kind of nervousness should have vanished years ago.

There was no way she was going to let him know how bad the coffee was.

Then again, since when had they ever needed words?

Angel took it in stride, though. "I'm still havin' trouble using the machine. Wiring in this old place and everything."

"Seeing you there is enough of a present for me. I know...how hard it is." She set the cup down. She wanted to go to Angel, but her body felt frozen in place. The tears she almost hadn't shed at Giles' had frozen on her cheeks during the walk over, another thing she hadn't noticed before this point. Another thing that was frozen.

"It wasn't mine to give," said Angel. His voice shook, but the gentleness in his motions as _he_ crossed the room to hold her, was very real.

"Given back."

"Yes."

_"Do not expect me to watch. And don't expect me to mourn for you, because..."_

They were two unwilling warriors, and their souls were linked. Buffy had never understood that until that moment. The--attraction--was there, certainly, but there was so much more than that. There was the kind of love that came from a deep understanding, from a shared battle, even from a shared deep agony. Buffy didn't know who started crying first. They had both been through too much that day, and they were the only two people in the world who comprehended it in each other. So they clung to one another.

Slayer and vampire, light and dark, heat and cold--and yet the heat had no flames and the cold did not numb.

_You are not staying here. I won't let you! _

"Angel," said Buffy slowly as they broke away, "...when I told you to fight..."

She waited. "For once, I can't finish the sentence for you," Angel said. Wonder and release were still written in his eyes; apparently even a vampire's heart could go on overload.

"Oh. I was thinking that there are things worth fighting for. Something wanted to show us that," she pointed outside. "Did you ever have snowball fights when you were a kid?"

"I...uh..."

He probably didn't remember. "Get out there," Buffy said. She thought about pushing him out the window into one of the soft, rapidly-growing snowbanks, but elected instead just to let him chase her out.

Sure enough, Angel appeared in the doorway right behind Buffy. She hit him with a big mass of snow. It wouldn't have hurt a regular person, let alone a vampire, and Angel didn't even flinch as it slid down his shirt.

"That's not fair," Buffy said. "It doesn't bother you!"

"Yeah, I have to be more careful," said Angel.

"I'm the Slayer, remember?" She'd gotten him with three more snowballs while he was still standing there.

He pushed her right into the thickest snowbank, and she had not let him do it.

"For someone who doesn't get out in the day much...ugh..."

"Night vision. It looks like night."

"Doesn't feel like it, thought."

He bested her again, and Buffy ended up in a pile of snow almost up to her waist.

_Angel, you have the power to do real good, to make amends._

Suddenly, it was not possible for the day to be any more beautiful. The future was like that, cold, stark, but still lovely.


End file.
